Читать книгу Chosen for the Marriage Bed - Anne O'Brien, Anne O'Brien - Страница 3

Author Note

My heroine, Elizabeth de Lacy, was born out of the dramatic tale of Ellen Gethin, wife to Thomas Vaughan, Lord of Hergest in the Welsh Marches. The story tells that Ellen’s brother David was murdered by her cousin. In a desire for revenge, at an archery contest Ellen took up a bow and arrow, aimed at her villainous cousin, and slew him. Whether she had to answer for her crime before the law is not told, but she earned the title Terrible Ellen.

It is a true romance of a headstrong, spirited lady, and I was determined to write about her. Ellen can be seen today, a carved figure on a magnificent alabaster tomb in Kington Church in Herefordshire, where she lies beside her husband. She has a calm serenity in her face that I imagine she did not have in life.

So I wrote my romance of the Wars of the Roses. Ellen became Elizabeth de Lacy, the Black Vixen, who of course needed a husband as purposeful and driven as she. Richard Malinder had the measure of his wilful bride, even though he had to come to terms with her pride and her unsettling knowledge of witchcraft. Thrust into a marriage neither of them sought, I knew it would prove to be a difficult journey for them— yet their love was to prove stronger than fear and suspicion, bloodshed and grief, the viciousness of civil war and cold-blooded murder.

I like to think that the spirits of Elizabeth and Richard still linger in Herefordshire today. I hope you enjoy their romance.